Dr. Tedros, Taiwan Scene and MyTaiwanTour Welcome You

Dear Dr. Tedros,

We here at MyTaiwanTour are deeply sorry to hear about the threats, comments and attacks that you have been subject to over the last few months. We are well aware of how hard you are working to combat the coronavirus pandemic around the world and we commend you for your efforts. You’re almost doing as good a job as Taiwan is.

We were deeply disappointed to hear that you recently accused Taiwan of racist attacks. This confused us somewhat as Taiwan is in fact one of the least racist places you could imagine. We’re so welcoming of other people that we let the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Spanish and the Japanese live here for many years free of charge. We were also the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, so to say we are a prejudice people is wildly off the mark. Much like back in January when the WHO claimed that there was no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of coronavirus. Wildly off the mark, indeed…

However, we still offer our condolences and apologies to you in this time of great personal stress. Nobody should be subject to racist abuse or death threats, irrespective of the circumstances. But, while we’re on the subject of unfair attacks, nobody (or no country) should be subject to unproven accusations of racism either. We know that you must’ve got this information about Taiwan abetting a campaign of slurs against you from somewhere. You aren’t just making it up. You seem to be a very trusting man who takes whatever he reads as truth. You’ve trusted all the information you’ve been receiving from certain countries over the course of this pandemic, after all.

Oddly, we have found a positive to come out of this unfortunate situation. You’ve finally decided to start referring to us as Taiwan. There’s been no smear campaign from Taipei, Chinese Taipei, or Taipei and Environs. Just good old Taiwan. So, for that, we thank you.

As the leading custom tour operator in the country, we here at MyTaiwanTour would love to offer you a complimentary tour of our beautiful island. You can see firsthand how friendly, loving and accepting our people are, as well as witness how we’ve so far managed to contain the spread of COVID-19 across the nation. Maybe you’ll pick up an idea or two you could share with the rest of the world. (FYI, it’s now compulsory to wear a facemask on public transport in Taiwan)

We’ll give you 18 days (十八天台灣啤酒). And by that we mean we’ll share a beer with you when you arrive. Not a drinker? We’d love to take you for a bubble tea.